Commitment Issues

I don't know that you can say that it should be apparent that Mauer wouldn't be able to catch at 31/32. There are tons of catchers still active at that age. They don't tend to be as good but Mauer as a catcher was amazing (if he was a catcher right now, no one would be complaining about his hitting, he'd be a very good option at catcher). He suddenly and unexpectedly couldn't catch and I think it's hard to blame the Twins for not being ready for this - you can't prepare for everything. Trading Ramos made sense for a team with eyes on the postseason - they just needed to get more than Fat Craps. Stupid Bill Smith.

 

I also don't think you can say the Twins haven't invested in the position - they have, it just hasn't turned out perfectly, which happens in a world where we don't have the benefit of hindsight. The Twins have drafted some high-upside catchers in Garver and Turner who have taken some time (as catchers tend to). They also had Pinto* set up and concussions and fielding issues just never quite put him into the mix on the MLB level. The Twins even traded for JRM - it hasn't worked (yet) but was the right move to make. They didn't do the stupid thing and go sign a Russell Martin (woof to that contract BTW - a warning sign about pursuing Ramos this offseason). Suzuki hasn't been amazing but he's been an okay stop gap and likely worth the money invested as he has certainly better over the past three or four years than anyone else in his pay slot on the free market.

 

Catcher is a probably the hardest position to be set at (maybe shortstop too?) so sometimes you have trouble with it. I like (but don't love) the future options for the position and understand the reasonable moves that left the Twins in this position. It happens, we'll be better in the future.

 

* Was looking at Pinto because I'd forgotten about him. He's tearing it up in AAA for the Brewers (.965 OPS with lots of doubles) but only catching about half the time, playing first the rest. I don't know if that's a catching depth thing or a "he's not much more than an emergency backup catcher" type thing. Would love to see him do well, always enjoyed the way he played.

I think it should have been obvious that Mauer, with the contract obligation going out to age 35/36 and past knee isssues was not going to be a full time catcher at 31/32. He should have been at best a 50% catcher. So any strategy that leaves Drew Butera catching 80 games deserves to be ridiculed.

We may not agree on the succession planning. But we never made a large free agent commitment or top draft pick on the position, post Mauer. With the hole the Ramos trade left, I don't think we have done enough.

I love it! The twins weren't a playoff team last year? Turns out they were right in the hunt. A couple of breaks the other way and they would have been in it. I hated the trade at the time because they should have went out and got more. The pieces they gave away for jepsen were never and still more than likely never figured into our plans. Especially if you are trying to win now. In baseball you should always be trying to win now unless you are where the twins are this year. In baseball as well as any other sport playoffs are so much about getting hot at the right time. Or as a former coach always preached it's about working towards playing your best ball at the end of the season. How often in any sport does the favored team or team with the best record win it all? Hardly ever. If you continually hold on to your pieces and hope for the future you end up like the 2000's twins. Always 1 or 2 pieces away hoping for prospects that never amount to anything to help you win it all next year. I would rather watch a handful of "great" prospects get traded away for players to help us win a World Series than to watch the twins for 10 years continually lose in the first round or barely not make it there year after year. You can argue prospects and numbers all day everyday and pretend that Major League Baseball is the same thing as your favorite video game but the fact of the matter is is that prospects and numbers rarely win you anything but fancy awards as you watch someone else winning a ring.

I love it! The twins weren't a playoff team last year? Turns out they were right in the hunt. A couple of breaks the other way and they would have been in it.

They had more than their fair share of breaks.  The sequencing they had last year was unsustainable that's why many people saw that their roster was mostly the same going into this year and we'd see a fall back (though not THIS far of a fall).  Can't blame them not making the playoffs on a few breaks not going their way, you can say they had a lot of things go their way to put this team even in the 2nd wild card race last year to begin with.

Capps was slightly better but, yes, you are correct that the Twins picked up something resembling a clone of what they already had on the roster.

 

And they gave up a pretty solid top 100 prospect for the honor.

 

I don't think I've screamed as much about a trade as it happened as I did during that trade... Though I also hated the Young/Garza trade... Not because I expected Young to tank but because losing Santana AND Garza in the same offseason meant the rotation was, to be generous, not awesome.

Pointing out the value of rankings...that's a top 100 prospect who never made it above AA and has been in independent leagues since age 26.  That kind of thing makes me feel even more that I probably overvalue prospects like Hu.

Garza and Bartlett for Young struck me at the time as a worse decision than releasing Ortiz, and far worse than Ramos and Testa for Capps.

Abad, Kintzler, etc: just flip 'em.  Do it.

Personally, I'm GLAD TR traded for help last year. That's exactly what he SHOULD have done.

 

"Sequencing," "luck," whatever you want to call it...it doesn't matter. They were solidly in the postseason hunt last July, and stayed there until the last weekend of the season. They needed BP help.

 

Now who they traded for, how much they paid, and if they should have done more are all fair question, IMO.

 

But I would have been supremely angry had TR done nothing. Jeesh...

 

People are seriously advocating "they shouldn't have done anything when they WERE in contention, in the hopes they can maybe do something IF they get into contention in a couple years"?

 

Seriously?

 

That's...the opposite of how it should be done.

I think the fair criticism is did he go bold enough? Jepsen effectively just replaced the reps when Perkins went down.

I think there should also be some criticism around succession planning at the catcher position.

 

It should have been apparent that Mauer was not going to be catching at 31/32 with that contract obligation. So the lack of investment in that position is the real issue. That leads folks to defend the signing of Suzuki because we had no other options.

Criticism doesn't end with catcher. But I'm not going to let past mistakes influence making present necessary decisions.